Fresh off his interview with Lesley Stahl on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Mark Zuckerberg is being asked to remove the very popular “Scrabulous” app from Facebook. An article from the wires this morning cites copyright claims by two of the worlds largest toy companies.
I don’t think it is coincidence given that the 60 Minutes piece that aired recently showed the Scrabulous application. Perhaps I am wrong on this, but is seems rather suspect.
Aside from getting into a discussion over copyright, I wonder if the folks at Hasbro and Mattel could have approached this in a different manner? The application is quite popular on Facebook. Is this not likely to do more damage to the brand than good if they get their way and it is removed? Perhaps this is a move to supply Facebook with a “legit” version of the game. Or, perhaps it was the only thing the toy execs could do having been caught off-guard to the opportunity unfolding in the digital world to extend the brand. Instead of unleashing a killer app, they are opting to become an application killer.
Two things are clear to me. First, when it comes to bringing a game to life online, it seems like a lay-up in terms of moving off the shelf from Toys “R” Us and breathing new life via the digital world. The transition of content offered up as widgets, Facebook applications or whatever are sitting right in front of people’s noses. Webkinz and Club Penguin have been effective in mixing up the online and offline worlds, so is it really a stretch for established offline games to rethink the model?
Second, I am not a big Scrabble fan, but “Scrabble” has been talked about a lot lately. This is undoubtedly due to the popularity of the application on Facebook. Before this legal wrangle, I had no clue this was not the “offical” version of the game and I’ll bet you didn’t know either. So, the Scrabble brand has benefited. If I am Hasbro and Mattel, I’d like to find out who programmed the application and put them on staff.
Perhaps Zuckerberg and Co. should try out an angle with select brands (or their agencies) where brand managers and application developers team up to build branded content/games like “Scrabulous” that people will use and love – where the advertising is in the game itself.
It is less likely to create the furor seen with Beacon and Social Ads. I mean, if a fast-food giant like Burger King can do advergaming, why can’t the game people?
UPDATE: My friend Shel Holtz of For Immediate Release fame and the blog A Shel of My Former Self has a great post explaining the rationale behind the lawsuit. He worked for Mattel, worth a read.

I heard about this interesting project called Bum Rush the Charts through Shel and Neville of the For Immediate Release podcast and it seems to be picking up speed as the word spreads.
I do not believe this is just the latest meme to gain link love. This is an honest-to-goodness attempt to usurp the system as we have come to know it yet had no other choice but to support over the past decades. We now own our own choice. Giddy up.Bum Rush the Charts is an idea that will take hold March 22 when “we the people” (as “You” i.e. Time Magazine’s Person of the Year) will hold the key to show the music industry that they no longer own the audience and the artists – we are taking back expropriated and exploited art and donating some of the proceeds as well.
Here is the Bum Rush the Charts mantra from the BRTC blog:

On March 22nd, we are going to take an indie podsafe music artist to number one on the iTunes singles charts as a demonstration of our reach to Main Street and our purchasing power to Wall Street. The track we’ve chosen is “Mine Again” by the band Black Lab. A band that was dropped from not just one, but two major record labels (Geffen and Sony/Epic) and in the process forced them to fight to get their own music back. We picked them because making them number one, even for just one day, will remind the RIAA record labels of what they turned their backs on – and who they ignore at their peril.

Hopefully, the movement will carve a path for an independent artist (in this case it is Black Lab) to make it to #1 on iTunes, forcing the fat cat music industry execs who continue to hold music hostage to pay attention.
My experience with Black Lab is as old as my podcasting, so not really that old at all. I discovered Black Lab as part of my podcasting experimentation last summer when I was searching through Podsafe Music Network. I stumbled upon them and instantly liked what I heard. I subsequently used their music in my Across the Sound contributions and then as the theme music for The Client Side.
Here is the rub to the music industry. I did what most record company execs would never understand after I received some freebie music via Podsafe Music Network – I went to an HMV looking for a Black Lab CD to buy. Guess what? I could not find them. They were not available which left me perplexed. Then I did some online research and found out that these talented guys were shafted by the music industry who now wont let buy my own copy of their music legitimately.
Is it any wonder that the music industry is doomed if they do not get their heads out of their DRM derrières?
For my 99 cents, BRTC is not just about making podcasting more of a known entity – that will come in time. This is all about demonstrating the impact of our collective word-of-mouse. And, best of all is that 50% of all earnings will go to a scholarship fund. Brilliant.
In an earlier post, I started to allude to a period of marketing reformation that is taking place. This not just a changing of the guard, it is more like a charging of the gates and taking the tower. The music/entertainment industry needs to find a new religion fast because BRTC is definitely a heretical undertone that will only grow.
So, on March 22 use your pocket change to make some change with the rest of us. Because, in the end, this is all about us.

Part 2 of episode of the conversation withKate Trgovac . Audio levels are much better this time out – thanks to Levelator by Gigavox – worked like a charm.
In the News segment and Adjust the Pitch segment are back.
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